The higher prices of two fertilizers are making the global food supply more expensive and less abundant as farmers save nutrients for their crops and get lower yields. Once supermarket shoppers in rich countries feel the waves, food shortages will affect more families in the poorest countries. Could hardly come at a worse time: the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization said last week that its global food price index for March was the highest since it began in 1990.

Fertilizer shortages threaten to further restrict food supply worldwide and has been overwhelmed by uninterrupted shipments of crucial grains from Ukraine and Russia. The loss of affordable supplies of wheat, barley and other grains raises the prospect of food shortages and political instability in the Middle East, Africa and some Asian countries, where thousands rely on subsidized bread and cheap noodles.

"The prices of your two foods will skyrocket because farmers will have to profit, so what will happen to consumers?" said Uche Anyanwu, an agriculture expert at the University of Nigeria. The aid group Action Aid warns that families in Horn of Africa are being pushed "to the brink of survival."

The UN says Russia is the world's number one exporter of nitrogen fertilizers and number 2 in phosphorus and potassium fertilizers. Its ally Belarus, which also faces Western sanctions, is another major fertilizer producer. Many developing countries, including Mongolia, Honduras, Cameroon, Ghana, Senegal, Mexico and Guatemala, depend on Russia for at least a fifth of their imports.

Source: Agrolink